** ADDENDUM TO MY LAST POST **

This is purely anectdotal. I need to experiment and study this highway-drafting thing further.

I had an opportunity to draft a few SUV's and trucks today. What fun! At one point, I was behind a truck-tractor (no trailor). Going about 65 MPH, I maintained a 2-to-3 second distance (I don't know how many feet or yards that would be).

I saw my "instant" go up about 5-10 MPH. This is very hard to judge, because you have to keep your eye on the road.

While drafting immediately behind that truck, a full-length tractor/trailor passed us on the left. At the point where he boxed me in and sealed off the space between himself and the "tractor-only" in front of me, I glanced at my MFD, and saw figures in the high 80's and low 90's. This continued for the entire duration of time that it took for the full-tractor/trailor to pass the tractor-only.

Then my instant figure dropped back into the 60s. Eventually, I had to pass the trailor-only for safety reasons, and after I settled back into my normal speed, I saw that my instant mileage had fallen into the mid-50's, where it typically hovers during 50-60 MPH driving on the highway.


Drafting big SUVs seems to offer something of a benefit, but not as much as the big tractor/trailors. Ryder and U-Haul moving vans also offer a nice opportunity; but I wouldn't follow any of them too closely, because one never knows how tired or unfamiliar somebody might be; after all, they may have been driving for hours, transporting their junk halfway across the US. :o